A birthday to remember

For some strange reason I decided it would be a fun to fly our 1976 Cessna 172N from our home base in Anchorage, AK to the South Lake Tahoe area where Scott's family has a home on the Nevada side of the lake.  I've been talking about it for quite some time and now I finally have a break in my work schedule which allows the journey.  While this idea was not initially received very well by Scott, he seems to be on board now (no pun intended) and perhaps a bit excited too.

Logistically this trip will be a bit on the strange side.  For reasons too long to elaborate on, we are planning to fly the aircraft down to the Lake Tahoe area and park it in a hangar.  We will then fly commercially back to Anchorage.  In mid July we will return to South Lake Tahoe to enjoy an already scheduled summer holiday and hopefully some great flying in the nearby area.  At the end of our short holiday we will return to Alaska in the plane.  We think.  Mother nature will ultimately decide when and where we go.

Landing and taking off at South Lake Tahoe is a bit dicey in our 150 hp machine, so we decided we would plan on parking the plane at the nearby Carson airport instead.  The elevation of Carson is 4,705' vs. South Lake Tahoe at 6,269'.  Because of the heat and elevation, density altitude issues are a concern for our little bug smasher.

We hope to leave Anchorage on June 30th depending on weather and last minute packing, provisioning and planning.  June 30th happens to be my birthday.  Regardless of how this trip plays out (we all know they never go as planned) it seems this may be a birthday I won't likely forget.